• Gmail for BES? Goolge App connector targets Gmail for the Enterprise eWeek is reporting that Google is releasing software for BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) that will allow GMail to be routed to blackberry devices.  The software is in beta now, but will be available to users of Google Apps Premier when it is fully released in July.  Right now, the application......
• Tesla Model S Tesla's Model S debuted in Manhattan on April 30th.  If only I had $50k that I didn't need, I'd love to pick one of these up.  Electric cars have been around a long time, but Tesla really gets it right.  There is no reason in the world that electric has......
• Gmail Calendar and Contacts Sync to Outlook You would think this would be easy, right?  Well it is.  Sort of. Google in their infinite wisdom provides an application to sync your Google Calendar to Outlook, but not your contacts.  I hope this on the way, but for now you need to use a third party app to......
• 10 Windows 7 Tips So far, Windows 7 is the bee's knees.  The more I find out, the more I like, which is saying a lot - with operating systems, it's usually the other way around! Here are a few things that make Windows 7 neat.  Big thanks to Tim Sneath for most of......
• Bypass the Recycle Bin in XP I have a love hate relationship with the Recycle Bin.  When I need it, I'm glad its there, but for the most part it is just a pain in the rear.  Most people forget to empty it (don't we all hate taking out the trash?) and end up with loads......

1) As soon as you notice you are infected, unplug your internet connection or turn off your wireless.  This will prevent the infection from spreading, and will isolate the offending program from its source.

2) Boot into Safe Mode

3) Run your favorite antivirus/anti-malware program.

This post is really about Safe Mode – how do you get there?  There are a couple of ways depending on the operating system you are using.  Here’s the Microsoft Page on the topic.

Windows XP

If XP is the only operating system installed on your computer, boot into Safe Mode with these instructions.

• If the computer is running, shut down Windows, and then turn off the power
• Wait 30 seconds, and then turn the computer on.
• Start tapping the F8 key. The Windows Advanced Options Menu appears. If you begin tapping the F8 key too soon, some computers display a “keyboard error” message.  If this happens, resstart the computer and try again.
• Ensure that the Safe mode option is selected.  If you are trying to clean a machine that is virus laden, choose Safe Mode Without Networking.
• Press Enter. The computer then begins to start in Safe mode.
• When you are finished with all troubleshooting, close all programs and restart the computer as you normally would.

If you don’t want to bother with function keys, you can use the System Configuration Utility method.

• Close all open programs.
• Click Start, Run and type MSCONFIG in the box and click OK
• The System Configuration Utility appears, On the BOOT.INI tab, Check the “/SAFEBOOT” option, and then click OK and Restart your computer when prompted.
• The computer restarts in Safe mode.
• Perform the troubleshooting steps for which you are using Safe Mode.
• When you are finished with troubleshooting in Safe mode, open MSCONFIG again, on the BOOT.INI tab,  uncheck “/SAFEBOOT” and click OK to restart your computer.  THIS STEP IS CRITICAL.  If you don’t change this back, then the computer will continue to boot in Safe Mode until you do.

Windows 7

Safe Mode in Windows 7 is basically the same as XP – use F8 to get to the Safe Mode startup screen.  MSCONFIG is slightly different – Safe Mode is called Safe Boot, but otherwise the process is the same.

• WEP vs WPA Another question I get asked a lot is on Wireless security.  People get very confused by the security options out there, and the industry doesn't help by adding acronym after acronym.  So what do you do?  The answer is fairly simple - secure your network with WPA!! There are lots......
• 10 Windows 7 Tips So far, Windows 7 is the bee's knees.  The more I find out, the more I like, which is saying a lot - with operating systems, it's usually the other way around! Here are a few things that make Windows 7 neat.  Big thanks to Tim Sneath for most of......
• POP vs IMAP I get asked this a lot - what is the difference between POP and IMAP, and why would I want one over the other? To put it simply, IMAP stores email on your mail server, POP stores email on your local email client. IMAP is better for a TON of......
• Windows 7 - First impressions So far so good - I installed the beta on a couple of laptops in the last month, and so far I like what I see.  It's very much Vista centric, but without the sllllloooooowwwwwness.  Boot time is much improved (under a minute) and there are some added features that......
• Conflicker - I mean, seriously If you don't already know, conflicker is a worm that exploits a buffer overflow in the windows server service.  The worm is wiley - there are several hundred variants and it is difficult to know how widespread it is.  You can find more info on the Wiki or on the......

• Speed Up the Internet - How to Speed Up a File Download Are you mad with your slower and slower download speed? Do you envy those with high network speed? Why they can download music, video and file so quickly? Let us see some simple measures to speed up download and Internet.The download speed relates with network speed, your own computer......
• why does my computer only work in safe mode? i have windows vista and my screen went blue while i was on the computer and now when i start it up the vista logo will come up then it will restart and now will only work in safe mode and with networking how do i make it work agian!!!......
• Slow Computer? One of the most frustrating things there is with a computer is when it starts to run slow.  I do a little bit a of computer tech repair on the side and this is one of the most common service calls I get when people call me.  Usually the......
• How To Secure Your Windows Computer When you buy a new computer, what is a security software to install in your windows? PCs are under constant attack from viruses, spyware and identity theft. Every day you hear about a new threat to your PC. They’re coming faster than ever before, they’re getting harder to stop and......
• The Decade in Tech [/caption] As 2009 comes to a close, it's time to take a look back at the decade that was. It’s hard to believe what the tech scene looked like 10 years ago, but here's a hint: Imagine a world without the iPod (much less the iPhone), without Facebook, without wireless......

1) Use Friends lists to group your friends into logical groups.  This allows you to grant different access rights to different groups of people.

2) Remove yourself from Facebook search results.  Like the author, my family is chock full of teachers.  For the most part, they don’t want their students to randomly find their personal information from a Facebook search, but still want to be on Facebook for family and friends.  The solution?  Remove yourself from Facebook search results.  You do this from the “search privacy settings” page.

3) Remove your Facebook self from Google search results.  As you know if you Google yourself (doesn’t everyone do this?) your Facebook profile will come up pretty quickly.  You can remove yourself from Google searches from the “search privacy settings” page – uncheck the “Create a Public Search Listing for me …” check box.

4) Control who sees your tagged photos – You can do this from your profile privacy page.  The cool thing is if you’ve set up your friends groups right, you can allow access to tagged photos by group.  That way the photo of you that you don’t want your boss to see won’t get you fired.

5) Control who sees your photo albums – as with tagged photos, not all pictures are for all eyes.  Check out the Photo Privacy Page.  From there you can control who sees what.  Very handy.

6) Control how your relationship status is displayed in news feeds.  Everyone likes to tout their relationship, but do you really want everyone (boss, business contacts) to know?  Uncheck the “Change relationship status” box on the News Feed and Wall section of your Privacy settings.  This will prevent people from seeing changed to your relationship status in their news feeds.

7) Be sure that applications don’t publish embarrassing news feed posts.  Many applications you sign up for post items to your news feed that are potentially embarrassing.  Be sure that you scan your profile every time you install an application, or better yet, avoid applications completely.

8) Control who sees your contact information.  If you use Facebook for business and for personal contacts, you can control who sees what contact information from you using your Friends Groups.  You can add multiple email address and phone contact items, then edit the custom privacy settings for each to control who sees them.

9) Avoid embarrassing wall posts.   Facebook lets you control not only who posts to your wall, but also who can see those posts.  In the Profile section you can change who posts to your wall by choosing “custom” from the “Wall Posts” drop down.  From there you can use your Friends groups to control who posts and who sees what.

10) Like your hands, keep your friends to yourself.  I love seeing who is friends with my friends, but some people don’t want to share, and in some cases, it’s probably not a good idea to share.  Once again, you can customize who can see your friends list using your friends groups.

There are endless ways to control your privacy on Facebook, but you need to take the time to sort through the settings.  Friends Grouping is a great place to start and ensures that you have separation of your business and personal contacts.  Get to know your privacy settings!!

• Kindle iPhone app After using the Kindle app for iPhone for a few weeks now, I'm totally hooked.  At first, I thought the small screen would be annoying, but I'm really loving this app!!  In my less busy days I used to read a lot.  These days life has taken over and I......
• iPhone Tips - 10 things you may not know Here are 10 things you may not know how to do on the iPhone. Web Clips:You can create a short cut to a web page as an icon on your iPhone.  To do this, tap the "+"  when on a web page, then tap "Add to Home Screen."  This will......
• Gmail for BES? Goolge App connector targets Gmail for the Enterprise eWeek is reporting that Google is releasing software for BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) that will allow GMail to be routed to blackberry devices.  The software is in beta now, but will be available to users of Google Apps Premier when it is fully released in July.  Right now, the application......
• Goolge's newest employees? 200 Goats. I know this is off topic for a Tech blog, but it concerns Google, so please indulge me. According to Google's blog, they are using Goats to mow the grass at their Mountain View headquarters.  "A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at......
• Find the physical location of an IP address There are lots of ways to do this, but I have a couple of favorite sites that show you the location and other details about an IP address. Geobytes gives you location information including latitude and longitude, time zone from GMT, country, region, city and a Google map of the......

• Yahoo Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips Yahoo Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips By Darren W Chow Everyone is talking about optimization a website for Google. Sure, Google does own a big chunk of the traffic. And they tend to deliver more traffic than everyone else. But don't forget that there are other major players around, such......
• Facebook News: More XTensive Privacy Ctrl - FineTunesPrivacy Most notable about the new privacy controls is the fact that Facebook members will now be able to choose how much of their profiles are visible to those on their friends list. Facebook fires up IM, ratchets up privacy. Posted by Caroline McCarthy CNET News.com's Dan Farber co-wrote this report.......
• If you'd like to learn more about me, then read on, curious readers, read on! This was the week of the meme's. I was tagged by Weight Ladder to do a 6-word memoir. I had actually completed this meme in the past, but no worries. My "profound" words are still there for all to see. ;) JoLynn at The Fit Shack tagged me with a......
• Getting Ahead of the Competition With Competitor Analysis The competitor analysis I refer to here is not to be confused with the Competitive Analysis applied to a business to determine a unique selling proposition or a Competitive Advantage.The competitor analysis to which I refer is that which when applied to a web site makes it possible to......
• Disqus vs. Intense Debate I recently made the move to install Disqus here on GeekLad. I had been running it on WealthBoy for a while and decided to go ahead and install it here as well. I did also take a look at IntenseDebate, but in the end Disqus won out. First, let's take......

There are lots of methods to use to secure your wireless network.  The most common is WEP, but that is being replaced by the newer (and better) WPA protocol.  You can also secure the network by allowing only specific computers on the network.  This is simple to do, and doesn’t require security keys and messy settings.  The problem with it is that the data you send wirelessly is not encrypted.  With WEP and WPA, the data is encrypted.

What are these things anyway?

WEP or Wired Equivalent Privacy (see the Wiki for more info) is an encryption protocol developed in the late 1990’s to secure wireless networks.  It offers 64bit and 128 bit encryption using a key generated by a passphrase you enter, but is easily cracked.  Despite this, there are a ton of people who still use WEP since it is the default protection on many routers.

WPA (WiFi Protected Access) is the next generation encryption algorithm that replaced WEP.  WPA uses 256bit encryption keys, and is far more secure than WEP.  It’s not the be-all-end-all, but is very good.  As with WEP, you have the option of generating a security key using a passphrase so that you don’t have to remember a string of random hex digits.  This is great, BUT you have to be careful about the passphrase you use.  DON’T use things like your pets name, your kid’s name, your street, or anything that can be guessed.

The clear answer is to secure your network with WPA.

BUT – do you have to secure your network at all?  The safe answer is yes.

What happens if you don’t secure your network?  That depends on where you live, how close your neighbors are, and how you secure your computers.  Most wireless routers have a range of 150 feet.  That means that if your neighbors are more than 150 feet away, they will not be able to get on your network unless they are standing outside your house with their laptop.

If you don’t change the default security settings on your computers, chances are that even if someone did get on your network, they wouldn’t be able to do much.  By default settings I mean:

• No shared hard drive locations
• Remote control disabled
• Firewalls up and running on every computer
• Anti-Virus up and running on every computer

Of course, this is not always realistic – I have lots of shared directories, and remote control enabled on my machines because I like to be able to work on any machine from anywhere if I need to.  For that reason, I like to secure the network so that if someone manages to get on they won’t get to my personal files.

The bottom line on security for wireless networks is best practice is to secure your network using WPA.  That said, if you live in a remote area where no one will likely be in range of your wireless, it’s not really necessary, just a good idea.

• How do I boot into Safe Mode? If you are fighting a virus/malware on your computer, it is best to boot in safe mode before you start removing things and running scans.  If you don't, it is likely that the malware will likely just re-install itself.  I'm not going to go into a whole tutorial on virus......
• iPhone Tips - 10 things you may not know Here are 10 things you may not know how to do on the iPhone. Web Clips:You can create a short cut to a web page as an icon on your iPhone.  To do this, tap the "+"  when on a web page, then tap "Add to Home Screen."  This will......
• iPhone SMS vulnerability IDG News is reporting that Apple is planning an update to fix a vulnerability in the SMS message handler that could be used by an attacker to run code with full access to the device.  According to security research Charlie Miller during a presentation the SkyScan conference, the patch will be......
• Find the physical location of an IP address There are lots of ways to do this, but I have a couple of favorite sites that show you the location and other details about an IP address. Geobytes gives you location information including latitude and longitude, time zone from GMT, country, region, city and a Google map of the......
• 35 best iPhone apps of the year so far AppVee (www.appvee.com) has released their list of the 35 best iPhone apps of the year so far. If you don't know about AppVee, they are awesome. Basically, they look at every (well almost every, they do ignore the nonsense) iPhone app published and winow out the good from bad. They......

• Wireless Security Wireless security is important, the convenience of having the ability of using a laptop anywhere around the house and using multiple desktop computers without having to fish wires through walls and make holes and tripping hazards.  I still see wireless security a big problem, doing a local WiFi scan on......
• Home Network Security [/caption] Home Computer security 1. What is computer security? Computer security is the process of preventing and detecting unauthorized use of your computer. Prevention measures help you to stop unauthorized users (also known as "intruders") from accessing any part of your computer system. Detection helps you to determine whether or......
• Securing your WiFi Network There are more and more individuals opting to work from home than ever before. The advantages to this are many including avoiding the morning and evening rush hours, being able to spend time with your kids and significant other, and doing everything on your own time. Though the pitfalls are......
• ESET Smart Security 4 Review This review is about ESET Smart Security 4 an all in one security package and ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4, since it is the same as ESET Smart Security 4, except that it is missing the firewall and a few small other things.  I have been using NOD32 for awhile, just......
• Do it Yourself Home Security - Can You Setup and Install Your Security System on Your Own? How can you choose the right home security system with so many different products to choose from? Indeed, many homeowners find themselves a bit overwhelmed when looking for surveillance equipment, cameras, alarms, etc. Even after you find the right system, you’ll still have to worry about getting it all set......

Sysomos also does research into twitter usage and in their blog report  that 24% of all tweets are bots and other programatic postings.  Not surprising since the top contributors are posting 150 tweets and more a day.  Interestingly, they also put together a list of the top posters who have 5000 or more followers, and less than 50 posts per day.  The assumption is that these are reall posters, not bots.  Chris Brogan tops that list.  Who is he?  He’s a guy that helps businesses use social media.  Practice what you preach I guess.

Lots of other interesting facts.  55% of tweeters are women, 78% are caucasian.  The number of African American twitter users is well above the average for African American internet users.  I have no idea what that says about African American internet users, but there it is. The demographic information on Twitter is from quantcast.  A very cool stat site for websites.

So what does this all mean?  Be careful who you follow, and don’t feel bad about dropping the people who post too much – they are likely just a bot anyway.

• Growl for Windows Growl v2.0 beta 18 was recently released for Windows - should you care?  If you are like most people, it is getting harder and harder to keep up with everything happening around you on the web.  Twitter, facebook, email, calendar, IM - the draws on your attention are almost overwhelming. ......
• iPhone 3.0 installed I've been using the iPhone 3.0 software for a couple of days now and other than a minor installation glitch (my fault) the upgrade was painless.  Everything seems to work as advertised, and so far, I like what I see. WiFi improvements - One of the things that really bugged......
• Conflicker - I mean, seriously If you don't already know, conflicker is a worm that exploits a buffer overflow in the windows server service.  The worm is wiley - there are several hundred variants and it is difficult to know how widespread it is.  You can find more info on the Wiki or on the......
• Firefox keyword search default Nothing gets my blood boiling faster than legitimate software that acts like malware.  Anything you install should, before it changes ANY settings, tell you what it wants to change and ask you if that's what you want to do.   The default browser, for example, is a setting that used to......
• TweetDeck to manage your Tweets Twitter is taking off like wildfire - you just can't get away from it.  I'm still not a huge buyer of the technology, but as the number of people I follow increases, I've been having a hard time sorting through the posts. Until now. Enter TweetDeck, "A Simple and Fast......

• Twitter Bird Feeder Review As you probably have noticed, I have been on quite the Twitter kick lately. Twitter is a powerful tool that allows marketers to take a lot of guesswork out of building a brand. As such, I have been exploring many different programs to help and automate the tedious parts of......
• Google Chrome OS and Their Hopes for the Cloud Google is holding an event right now in which they are unveiling what they are calling the Chrome OS.  Chrome has hither to been known as a browser, one that has garnered an impressive 40 million users.  But what I find interesting is the bet Google is making that more......
• Twitter A New Level Of Winning Internet marketers these days want to dominate social networks. Well, as an internet marketer, it will be easier to access the global market through Twitter and other social sites. By simply making friends online, you can already build a list of valuable leads. If you want to maximize your Twitter......
• Internet Marketing For Small Businesses Recent years have seen a changing tendency in the advertising of local businesses. Even if small companies often address the needs of a local community, people have got used to search for services on the Internet, and the world wide web has thus turned into the best environment for business......
• Mistakes to Avoid When Blogging For Business Most businesses today recognize the power of blogging and are using it to their advantage. Everyone from the bigger companies to much smaller businesses are taking advantage of the free advertising and wonderful increase to website traffic that can be gained from successful blogging. There are some mistakes that you......

The list of apps they like so far is here.

Notable inclusions are TweetDeck, Skype and Kindle – three of my personal favs.

Thanks AppVee!!

• Outlook for the iPhone? eWeek is reporting that a Microsoft Executive, Stephen Elop, while speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo hinted that Microsoft will eventually release a version of the Office suite for mobile devices, specifically the iPhone.  I think this is important for a couple of reasons.  It further emphasizes MS' current move......
• Open Source Software PBX - ready for prime time? I've been working with a client who needs to replace an aging PBX but is (as is everyone) extremely cost averse.  What are their options? A vendor supported PBX plus desktop phone sets together would probably cost them more than $10k.  Obviously a vendor supported system has losts of advantages from a......
• iPhone Tips - 10 things you may not know Here are 10 things you may not know how to do on the iPhone. Web Clips:You can create a short cut to a web page as an icon on your iPhone.  To do this, tap the "+"  when on a web page, then tap "Add to Home Screen."  This will......
• Romanticizing Technology I've been thinking a lot lately about why we love and hold on to technology gadgets when they are not necessarily all that great.  I can think of several things I've bought or used at work that were "the next big thing" or just new and cool that turned out......
• Bypass the Recycle Bin in XP I have a love hate relationship with the Recycle Bin.  When I need it, I'm glad its there, but for the most part it is just a pain in the rear.  Most people forget to empty it (don't we all hate taking out the trash?) and end up with loads......

• Sunday Money Madness This week on Sunday Money Madness, the weekend material includes many varied financial tips. Enjoy! Tell me what you think! Get Rich Slowly goes into credit card basics: five essential skills for mastering plastic. Water fun activities to cool you off this summer by Digerati Life examines the cost of......
• 6 tax moves to make by year-end. It's that time again... time for that end of year preparation for maximizing your tax breaks for next year. Some of these are the pretty standard tips that you should do every year, but others are only available this year, or are no longer available after this year. 1. Buy......
• 5 Worst & 5 Best iPhone and Droid Apps of 2009 - AppJudgment The best and worst cell phone apps of 2009. Did your favorite app make our list? We locked ourselves in a room and duked it out to come up with AppJudgment's top 5 Best and Worst mobile apps of 2009. The final verdict on both lists may surprise you!......
• Tax Prep Tips for the Procrastinator This post is for the millions of Americans who wait until the final days to prepare and file their federal income tax returns. I am one of them, although strategically so. I haven't received a refund in years, so I run a preliminary income tax obligation assessment in the beginning......
• Reason Prevails over Spending Temptation You may recall that Mr. ToughMoneyLove had a little cell phone vs. water episode during last week's vacation. After a brief period of anxious withdrawal, I enjoyed several stress-free days of life without a phone in my pocket. Upon my return to the working world, I had to dispense with......

1) Stop Outlook from suggesting names in the TO field.

This is related to the .nk2 file I blogged about awhile ago.  If you don’t like that outlook suggests names for you, then you can turn this off.  Go to Tools, then Options.  From there choose the Preferences tab, then click the e-mail options button.  In the e-mail options dialog, click the Advanced E-mail Options button.  Uncheck the radio button for “Suggest names while completing To, Cc, and Bcc fields”.  Click “ok”.

2) Configure Outlook to NEVER send read receipts.

Personally, I think read receipts are annoying.  Some people love them, and who am I to judge, but I’d prefer to keep when I read your mail to myself, so I turn this “feature” off.  To do this, go to Tools, then Options.  From there choose the Preferences tab, then click the E-mail options button.  In the E-mail options window, choose the “Tracking Options” button.  Look for “Use this option to decide how to respond to requests for read receipts. Only applies to Internet Mail accounts.”   There are a couple of radio buttons – choose “never send a response”.  Click “ok”.

3) Remove the System Tray icon for new email

Another love it or hate it item.  I like this one, but when the system tray gets cluttered, out it goes.  To remove the icon, once again go to Tools, Options and from there choos the Preferences tab.  On the Preferences tab choose the E-mail Options button.  In the E-mail options dialog choose the Advanced E-mail Options button.  Under the “When new items arrive in My Inbox”, uncheck “Show an envelope icon in the notification area”.  Click “ok”.

4) Configure Outlook to empty the deleted items folder when you exit.

This is really helpful if you have limited mailbox space.  Deleted items count toward your mailbox space limits, so you either need to remember to empty your deleted items, or have outlook do it for you when you exit the application.

To configure Outlook to empty deleted items on exit, go to Tools, the Options, then choose the “Other” tab.  Under “General”, check “Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting”.  Click “ok”.  Your sysadmin will love you ;)

5) Add Holidays to your Calendar

Outlook support iCal, so there are thousands of calendars you can add to Outlook.  To add holidays from the default list, go to Tools then Options, then choose the Preferences tab.  In the Calendar section, click the Calendar Options button.  In the Calendar Options window, click the “Add Holidays” button.  Scroll through the resulting list, click the radio button next to the ones you want, then click “ok”.

Just a few things for now.  I’ll add more another time.

• POP vs IMAP I get asked this a lot - what is the difference between POP and IMAP, and why would I want one over the other? To put it simply, IMAP stores email on your mail server, POP stores email on your local email client. IMAP is better for a TON of......
• Send mail from another address without the "on behalf of" message in gmail From the Gmail blog One of the neat features of Gmail is that you can use it to aggregate all of your email addresses to one inbox.  You add the email addresses to your gmail account, and they connect via POP or IMAP to your other accounts and everything is......
• Adding multiple emails accounts on your iPhone If you are like me, you have too many email accounts. Work account, personal account, account for public use (spam mostly ends up here), blog email account, side business account, test accounts from various services. Too many to check all the time. What do I do to manage them all?......
• Gmail calendar sync to iPhone I've been looking for a way to sync my Google Calendar to my iPhone using the native iPhone calendar app.  Google has come out with (I have no idea when this came out, so I may be late to the party here) a calendar and contacts sync to the iPhone......
• Add more destinations to the "Send To" right click menu There are tons of little tweaks to XP out there that make the GUI more useful.  One of the things I've found is that the default elements of the contextual menus in XP do not always have everything you want in them.  Thankfully, much of these things are customizable. I......

• Choosing the Right Golf Clubs If you want to move past your current golf skill level to the next one, then you need to learn how to choose the right golf clubs. Having some basic tips and tricks in your arsenal when you go looking for professional golf clubs is absolutely vital. Skim through these......
• Setting Junk E-Mail Options You set Outlook’s filtering and handling of junk e-mail in the Junk E-Mail Options dialog box, as follows: Choose Tools?Options from the main Outlook window to display the Options dialog box. On the Preferences tab, click the Junk E-Mail button. Outlook displays the Junk E-Mail dialog box. If necessary, click......
• Applying a background fill A custom background fill can include solid colors, gradients, textures, or graphics. This section covers how to specify your own background fill, which involves the following steps: (Optional) To affect only certain slides, select them. On the Design tab, click Background Styles. The Background Styles gallery opens. Click Format Background.......
• Movie files avi cause desktop crash in vista and windows 7 Stop repeated desktop crashes in windows 7 and vista by disabling thumbnail cache...
• Automatic e-mail account setup Outlook can automatically configure some e-mail accounts. This works for some but not all POP, IMAP, Exchange Server, or HTTP accounts. To use the automated e-mail account setup feature, you need to have your e-mail address and your password. Then, here are the steps to follow: From the menu, choose......

Here are a few things that make Windows 7 neat.  Big thanks to Tim Sneath for most of these.

1) Windows Management – in XP, your choices on what you could do with arranging windows on your screen was somewhat limited.  You could maximize a window to take the whole screen, you could manually shrink it to the size you wanted and move it to the side, iconize it, etc.  In Windows 7, several “docking” features were introduced that make moving things around on your screen really easy.  If you press the Windows key, then the left arrow, the current window will dock to the left side of the screen.  WIN+right arrow will dock to the right, WIN+up arrow will maximize the window, WIN+down arrow will restore the window.  In addition to the WIN shortcuts, you can drag windows to the top to maximize it (double clicking the title bar still works too), or you can drag the window to the left or right to dock the window there.

On a related note, in a multi monitor setup, you can move windows from one screen to the other using WIN+SHIFT+right or left arrow.  Now were talking!

2) Get rid of the noise – Have you ever been working on a document and been annoyed that all of you other open windows are just in the way?  Press WIN-Home in Windows 7 and all windows but the current are minimized.  Press WIN-Home again to restore the windows.

3) Browser load times – This is really an IE8 tip, but I’ll include it here.  If IE is taking a long time to load, it may be because of the add-ons you are running.  Go to Tools/Manage Add Ons and you will see  a list of what IE loads at startup.  The neat thing is if you scroll to the right in the list, you can see the load times for the Add Ons.  This is a great way to see where the bottle necks are.

4) Quick start for taskbar apps – you can use WIN+1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 to quickly go to or start any of the first 5 apps in your taskbar.

5) Look at the desktop – Another helpful feature is WIN-space bar.  This combo lets you look at the desktop and see any icons or widgets you have.  You can also click on the rectangle all the way in the lower right hand corner – this is the old “show desktop” icon.

6) Additional instance of an open application – there are a couple of ways to do this, but by far the fastest is to hold the shift key while left clicking on the taskbar icon.  Way better than going through the start menu again, or right clicking and choosing to open the app.

7) Running with elevated rights.  If you hold CTL-Shift while clicking on a taskbar app, you will bring up a new instance with full administrator rights (assuming your account has permissions).  When Windows 7 is deployed in an enterprise, this will be GREAT.

8) Specialized Window switching – this one I love.  If you are like me, you have tons of windows open all the time.  In XP if you want to switch between windows you can ALT-Tab through them all, or you can click on the taskbar icon and guess which window is the one you want.  In Windows 7, you can essentially Alt-Tab through all of the open windows associated with a specific application without scrolling through every open window.  You do this by holding down the CTL key, then clicking on the taskbar icon for the application you want.  Windows will “scroll” through the open windows as you click the icon.  This is great if you want to scroll through all of your open Outlook windows, for example, but don’t want to run through everything you have open.

9) Move focus the taskbar – this is neat keyboard shortcut.  If you press WIN-T you will move focus to the taskbar.  You can then use the arrow keys to move through your taskbar apps to choose the one you want.  For keyboard shortcut junkies, this is great.

10) Open windows explorer keyboard shortcut – Press WIN+E.  This will open up and explorer window at the Computer Node.  Note that SHFT+click on the explorer icon opens at the Document Library Node.

More to come -

• iPhone Tips - 10 things you may not know Here are 10 things you may not know how to do on the iPhone. Web Clips:You can create a short cut to a web page as an icon on your iPhone.  To do this, tap the "+"  when on a web page, then tap "Add to Home Screen."  This will......
• I hate viruses Working on a client computer for the last two days that is massively infected.  When they handed the machine to me, there was no firewall, no virus protection and windows updates were way out of sync.  Whoo boy. Windows update was not working at all - one if the viruses......
• Windows 7 - First impressions So far so good - I installed the beta on a couple of laptops in the last month, and so far I like what I see.  It's very much Vista centric, but without the sllllloooooowwwwwness.  Boot time is much improved (under a minute) and there are some added features that......
• SVCHOST.exe - What is it and why are there so many of them? I get asked this a lot.  When you run Task Manager in XP and look at the process list, you see tons of svchost.exe processes running.  You can't kill them (you don't really want to) and there's no obvious reason that there are so many of them. What are they? ......
• Conflicker - I mean, seriously If you don't already know, conflicker is a worm that exploits a buffer overflow in the windows server service.  The worm is wiley - there are several hundred variants and it is difficult to know how widespread it is.  You can find more info on the Wiki or on the......

• Windows Phone 7: An In-depth Look at the Features and Interface [/caption] Windows Phone 7 adds new social networking and productivity features all within a clean and touch-friendly interface. Microsoft took the wraps off of Windows Phone 7 Series (the official name for Windows Mobile 7) here Monday at Mobile World Congress. Slated to launch on handsets by holiday season 2010,......
• Reduce, Reuse & Recycle - Turning An Old Window Into A New Mirror Part 1. As I write this, I am just back from yet another couple of hours in the garage scraping old caulk, rubber, paint, mold and assorted other crap off of a very old broken window that I found on the side of the road. I have had to use a hammer......
• Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcut keys Here are some Keyboard shortcut keys for Windows 7 :p Windows + (+/- keys) - Zoom in/out Shift+Click a taskbar item - Open a new instance of that application Windows +Home - Minimize all but the current window Windows + Pause [Break] - Open System Properties. Windows + Space -......
• How to Fix Your Weak Windows - Installing Storm Windows [/caption]When it comes to windows, people generally have one of three things in mind. Decor, energy savings, and protection from the elements. What if you could install windows that served up a dose of all three, saving you money on energy, protecting you from storms, and adding to the design......
• Starting an Application Starting one of the Office applications loads that program and its tools into your computer system’s RAM (working memory) so that you can begin working. If you’ve started an application in Windows XP or Windows Vista before, you’ll probably be able to find the startup commands for the Office applications......

One of the neat features of Gmail is that you can use it to aggregate all of your email addresses to one inbox.  You add the email addresses to your gmail account, and they connect via POP or IMAP to your other accounts and everything is in one place.  Until this past Thursday, when you replied to a mail that was not to your mail account, Gmail would put your main account in the “Sender” field so that your mail would not be kicked as spam.  What the recipient would see is a message that the mail was send “on behalf of” the intended address “from” your main account.  While this is ok in most instances, if you are trying to mask that Gmail is the tool you are using for all of your mail, then this can be annoying.

Thursday, Google introduced a way to route your mail through the SMTP server of your choice instead of their SMTP servers, so your mail will look like it is comming from the system you choose and the “on behalf of ” messages will go away.  Neat!  If your office allows POP/IMAP and you allows remote SMTP then you are golden.  If not, well then you have to live with the “on behalf of” messages.

• iPhone Cut and Paste!!! It's is about time - Apple just announced that version 3.0 of the iPhone OS will have, among other things, cut and paste.  This has been one of my pet peeves for a long time, and frankly I can't believe it hasn't been done yet.  I don't understand how it......
• 10 Windows 7 Tips So far, Windows 7 is the bee's knees.  The more I find out, the more I like, which is saying a lot - with operating systems, it's usually the other way around! Here are a few things that make Windows 7 neat.  Big thanks to Tim Sneath for most of......
• TweetDeck to manage your Tweets Twitter is taking off like wildfire - you just can't get away from it.  I'm still not a huge buyer of the technology, but as the number of people I follow increases, I've been having a hard time sorting through the posts. Until now. Enter TweetDeck, "A Simple and Fast......
• Gmail Calendar and Contacts Sync to Outlook You would think this would be easy, right?  Well it is.  Sort of. Google in their infinite wisdom provides an application to sync your Google Calendar to Outlook, but not your contacts.  I hope this on the way, but for now you need to use a third party app to......
• Gmail for BES? Goolge App connector targets Gmail for the Enterprise eWeek is reporting that Google is releasing software for BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) that will allow GMail to be routed to blackberry devices.  The software is in beta now, but will be available to users of Google Apps Premier when it is fully released in July.  Right now, the application......

• Sending a Paper Check, Using ING Recently, I needed to send money to a friend of mine.  Unfortunately, the easiest way I know to transfer money from one person to another, via Paypal, was not an option in this case; my intended recipient didn't have a Paypal account.  I could have written out a paper check......
• 100 Calorie Diet Review The 100 Calorie Diet is a type of diet that was created by a pair of sisters, Tammy Trimble and Susie Trimble, and they lost more than 100 lbs following this diet plan that they have put together. They believe that by keeping track of calorie consumption in units of......
• Communicate with your hosts If you're managing a carnival then you know how important your hosts are.  They can make managing the carnival a piece of cake.  And if they volunteer to host, they likely know what it entails and will put together a good carnival for you, the carnival readers, and for the......
• Adding an e-mail account Here’s all you have to do to set up a new e-mail account using an existing Office Live subscription: Sign in to Office Live with the owner e-mail address and password that you used to subscribe to Office Live. Only the original subscriber can create a new e-mail address —......
• How to enlist Gmail to sell your Craigslist items for you A friend from our previous church sent me an e-mail tonight. Because we've been buried in 1.2 miles of snow for the past few days, she had the opportunity to pile through some projects. She had just gotten to a pile of stuff she had been meaning to sell for......

What is Growl?  In their own words:

Put simply, Growl lets you know when things happen. Files finished downloading, friends came online, new email has arrived – Growl can let you know when any event occurs with a subtle notification. The rest of the time, Growl stays out of your way.

Along with letting you know when things happen, Growl also gives you full control over how you are notified and what action (if any) you want to take in response to the notification. You can choose to be alerted with a visual indicator or an audible alert, both, or neither. You can choose the type of display that is shown, whether the display remains on the screen, the importance of the notification, and even if the notification should be forwarded to another computer. You can have notifications that trigger an email, run a script, launch a program, or are read out loud.

Growl has been available as a MAC application for some time now, so their foray into Windows land is a welcome addition to help you manage your machine. All of you have Windows Update on, right?  Well now you have a tool that you can configure to notify you and/or take action on lots of other things on your machine.

How does it work?  The setup is somewhat manual, but this is a good thing, since the whole point is that Growl is unobtrusive.  Once you install the application, the software sits in your system tray waiting to be told what to do.  You download pluggins from the Growl site for the applications you want.  There are tons of apps there – Firefox, iTunes, Outlook, Gmail, even a system monitor.  You run the setup for the app you want and let Growl do the rest.  What you get is a configurable pop up window for whatever application you choose.

You get configurable reminders for things as they happen – new emails, calendar appointments, what the tune you are playing on iTunes is (they have Pandora too).  New apps are being added all the time, and there is a GNTP library and command line tools that you can use to work with almost any API.

Neat stuff.  Not perfect, but I like it so far.

• How do I boot into Safe Mode? If you are fighting a virus/malware on your computer, it is best to boot in safe mode before you start removing things and running scans.  If you don't, it is likely that the malware will likely just re-install itself.  I'm not going to go into a whole tutorial on virus......
• iPhone Tips - 10 things you may not know Here are 10 things you may not know how to do on the iPhone. Web Clips:You can create a short cut to a web page as an icon on your iPhone.  To do this, tap the "+"  when on a web page, then tap "Add to Home Screen."  This will......
• Gmail for BES? Goolge App connector targets Gmail for the Enterprise eWeek is reporting that Google is releasing software for BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) that will allow GMail to be routed to blackberry devices.  The software is in beta now, but will be available to users of Google Apps Premier when it is fully released in July.  Right now, the application......
• Windows 7 - First impressions So far so good - I installed the beta on a couple of laptops in the last month, and so far I like what I see.  It's very much Vista centric, but without the sllllloooooowwwwwness.  Boot time is much improved (under a minute) and there are some added features that......
• Romanticizing Technology I've been thinking a lot lately about why we love and hold on to technology gadgets when they are not necessarily all that great.  I can think of several things I've bought or used at work that were "the next big thing" or just new and cool that turned out......

• Three Essential Windows Mobile Applications Suddenly, the mobile phone industry is inundated with operating systems: iPhone OS, Google Android, Palm WebOS, Symbian, Maemo, BlackBerry, Samsung Bada, and of course, Windows Mobile. Microsoft recently released WinMob 6.5, in a sign that the company has not yet called it quits and is willing to fight it out.......
• Delta Squadron - Your Own Marketing Tools Delta Squadron and Method of explaining marketing tools for online shopsEveryone can name some of the most common marketing tools, but how to define marketing tools for online shops. Email is the favorite form of spammers and it’s not as simple as saying email. Important offline marketing techniques are flyers,......
• Printing a File With the crisp, vibrant output produced by today’s cheap color printers, who would want a paperless office? Although the Internet and faster computer networks have made electronic transmission a common and accepted means of sharing documents, many circumstances still call for—if not require—that information be shared on paper: Legal documents......
• PearBudget Review: Really Simple Budgeting Last night, on the 25th episode of the Personal Finance Hour, we discussed mostly about budgeting and touched on some popular budgeting tools. PearBudget is an online budget management tool, mentioned by both JD and members of the chatroom, that I had never heard of. PearBudget’s tagline is “really simple......
• Uni-tasking to control ADHD In today's world where we are victims of information overload on a daily basis (facebook, twitter, rss feeds, etc, etc) ADHD is something that many people suffer from almost daily. For some of us it is mild, for others it is quite severe. I was diagnosed with ADHD quite......